Avers

Every year, in the hours and days after I publish my Top 10 lists and say to myself “Well that’s done, thank god,” I start planning a mea culpa post that lists all the mistakes I made. This year, for example, I can’t remember what I was doing but “I hit the weekend just like a freight” ran through my head and the realization hit me just as hard: “Shit. I totally left off Nashville Obsolete.” Definitely should have been in my Top 25. Maybe even Top 10. It wasn’t released on vinyl, so I didn’t have a physical reminder around the house, but still… wish I hadn’t blanked on that one.

I never actually write or post these mea culpas — I figure it’s a “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party” situation — but there’s one regret from 2015 list-making I can’t abide silently, and that’s not listening to Avers’ Wasted Tracks EP sooner.

I’ve been playing it repeatedly since New Year’s, and I really, really like these songs. It’s an interesting collection, because square-peg-round-hole EPs usually come out after the full length album they were trimmed from, but I read that these songs were cut from the band’s upcoming 2016 album. That they weren’t representative of the direction the band is going in. It’s exciting — trying to anticipate what that direction might be, having fantastic songs like “Calling Out To You” and “Come To Me Now” as points of predictive contrast. And “Beautiful Day To Die” is easily one of my favorite songs they’ve done so far.

Here’s to looking forward and backward and the same time.

Avers — “Calling Out To You” [Spotify/iTunes]